PENSACOLA NAVAL AIR STATION, Fla. – Ed Ellis steps across the National Naval Aviation Museum into the aircraft that was Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Chester Nimitz's flying headquarters during World War II.

TONY GILBERSON / Associated Press

Visitors checked out an once-almost-unrecognizable SB2U Vindicator that was completely rebuilt at the National Naval Aviation Museum.

“If this plane could talk,” said the 67-year-old retired Navy captain, longing to hear the conversations that happened aboard the vintage PB2Y Coronado. “Nearly every Navy admiral in the Pacific was in here.”

The Coronado – the first U.S. plane to land in Tokyo after the war – is the latest restoration project undertaken by the museum's mostly volunteer staff of hundreds of military retirees.

Located at Pensacola Naval Air Station, the museum has:

A seven-story atrium that features four Blue Angels jets hanging from the ceiling.

An Imax theater that shows a film about the acrobatic fliers.

A flight simulator that depicts a jet fighter swooping into battle during the first Iraq war.

And a cafe that's a re-creation of the officer's club at Cubi Point in the Philippines.

TONY GILBERSON / Associated Press

Mort Eckhouse, a volunteer, worked on fabricating a flap hinge for a PB2Y Coronado once used by Adm. Chester Nimitz.

But the backbone of the museum, which opened in 1963 and has been expanded three times, is its restored planes. The museum has the Navy's S-3B Viking that President Bush flew when he landed on the carrier Abraham Lincoln and made his “Mission Accomplished” speech about the Iraq war. The first President Bush is also recognized at the museum – a trainer he flew as a 19-year-old World War II flight student hangs inside.

The volunteers often draw on their own military experience to make the restorations authentic, and the thousands of hours in labor donated each year have made the volunteer program a model for other museums.

Cost: Admission to the museum is free, but there are fees for the IMAX theater and the flight simulators.

Extras: The Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team performs outside the museum at 8:30 a.m. on most Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the summer and fall. Following the flight demonstration on Wednesdays, pilots usually sign autographs for visitors inside the museum.

Information: navalaviationmuseum.org or (850) 452-3604.

– ASSOCIATED PRESS

“It's a wonderful moment when the guy who actually flew the plane comes and checks it out,” he said while working on a part used to attach the Coronado's vertical stabilizer. “We try to restore them as close to the factory specs as we can.”

Volunteer Jeff Peyronnin, 62, has spent the last two years working on the Coronado's tail section. He and the other volunteers like to joke that it will take 10 more years before the restoration is complete. The museum estimates it will take three years to completion.

“Every time you mess with it you feel like you are touching history,” said Peyronnin, who served in the Coast Guard. “I like to picture this old lady at Tokyo Bay.”

Bob Matlock, 69, served as an aircraft mechanic in Vietnam. Nowadays Matlock is using his skills replacing some 10,000 rivets in the Coronado's tail section.

He winces when he thinks about the thousands of museum visitors who will climb the stairs of the restored plane and peek inside one day, scratching the paint and shaking loose some of the bolts and rivets.

Many of Les Schnyder's restoration projects are already on display inside the museum. The 82-year-old World War II veteran has logged more than 18,000 hours as a volunteer. His niche is restoring the blimplike airships that escorted convoys in World War II. Schnyder, a former Navy man, worked as a civilian contractor maintaining airships at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey.

Some of the planes were brought back to life after being pulled from the water years later. Ellis' favorite museum aircraft is an early World War II-era Brewster Buccaneer that was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. It later flew in the Battle of Midway and then became a training aircraft for pilots practicing carrier landings in Lake Michigan, where it sank following a crash. It was salvaged from the lake's depths after six decades.

Wally Farrand retired after 22 years in the Navy and now restores the museum's vintage aircraft engines, including the Brewster's. As he painstakingly went over parts from the Coronado's engine with a cleaning solvent and cloth, he joked that his best work is never seen by museum visitors because it is covered inside the aircraft.